Recent rainfall boosts area lake levels

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, September 20, 2008

Area lakes south of Plainview got a good boost from last week's heavy rains.

The people who may be the happiest about that are the folks at White River Lake south of Crosbyton.

According to Jeanie Lambert, manager of White River Lake Marina, they got enough rain across their watershed to raise the lake level by 11 feet.

Before the rains, she said, White River Lake was down 31 feet, so they still have a lot to make up.

Estimates put the lake at about 12 feet at its deepest point when the rains started. So at this point, Lambert couldn't be happier with the rebound that is under way.

"It's beautiful out here," she said, adding that the boat ramps, gas docks and crappie house all now are in the water.

The benefit is more than just getting activities going at the lake again - in a news release from the authority, managers said they have been receiving calls from area residents about the status of the lake.

Mickey Rogers, manager of White River Municipal Water District reported that 2 billion gallons of water was caught in the recent deluge. That is equivalent to four years of drinking water for the surrounding counties.

White River Lake is the water source for Post, Ralls, Crosbyton and Spur.

To the southwest, Lake Alan Henry near Justiceburg has been spilling over its dam since the rains last week, according to Danny Pool, recreation area supervisor.

Pool said the lake came up to the point that it was "6 1/2 feet over full." Currently, the lake still is 3 feet over full.

North of Plainview is a different story.

Dean Johnson, business manager at Mackenzie Municipal Water Authority, said that area only received about 1.5 inches of rain from the most recent system.

Currently, he said, the lake level is about 72 feet.

He added that the water temperature is between 72-74 degrees, so skiing activities are beginning to slow down.

However, Johnson continued, fishing is beginning to pick up as the water temperature becomes more conducive to crappie fishing.

Greenbelt, near Clarendon, is in about the same boat as Mackenzie as far as this last rain event.

Bobbie Kidd, general manager at the lake, said they didn't get any rise from last week's rain, which missed his area.

"If the lake had been at Childress we'd have gotten a lot of water," he said with a chuckle.

On the good side, Kidd said, the lake got about a foot of rise from a system that crossed the area in mid-August.

Currently, the lake level is at 55.82 feet, which still is below the first drought trigger of 57 feet.

Kidd said the lake has averaged a loss of about 3 feet per summer the past 10 years.

Lake Meredith did not receive much rain from last week's system across its watershed. However, it did get a pretty good boost from that earlier system.

Chad Pernell, deputy general manager for the Canadian Municipal Water Authority, said the lake has risen more than 5 feet from a low of about 45.5 feet earlier this summer.

The current level is at 50.85 feet, he said.

Pernell added that the lake has been "holding steady" over the past weeks since the water began to move into Meredith from the watershed.

However, he continued, Meredith has gotten about all of the boost it is going to get from that system.

He added that CRMWA has completed its salt cedar eradication program for this year.

The authority treated 5,378 acres at a cost of $806,000. CRMWA paid $414,000 of that amount with the state picking up the balance, Pernell said.

Kidd pointed out that to a degree, one lake's misfortune is another's fortune.

He said that as Meredith continued to drop, Greenbelt took on a lot of that traffic.